A 2-leaf Clover Sprouts For Sears Site Traffic

Construction started Tuesday on an $8.6 million tollway project that will open a transportation gateway to nearly four square miles of undeveloped land in northwest Cook County.

Gov. Jim Edgar and officials from Hoffman Estates, the Illinois Toll Highway Authority and Sears, Roebuck and Co. broke ground for the long-awaited construction of an interchange at Beverly Road and the Northwest Tollway.

The interchange is the second key access to the Sears Merchandise Group headquarters site on the western side of Hoffman Estates, an area that is expected to grow quickly in the coming years.

"I have long advocated infrastructure improvements to spur economic development, and that is exactly what the Beverly Road interchange does," Edgar said.

And unlike many road improvement projects designed to alleviate existing traffic problems, Hoffman Estates officials view construction of the new interchange as a pre-emptive measure.

"What's nice about the construction starting now is the interchange will be completed prior to the demand really being there," said Mark Koplin, a planner for the village. "We're providing the improvement before the problem is already there."

The interchange will allow westbound motorists to exit and eastbound motorists to enter the tollway. A full four-way interchange is not being built now because of funding limitations.

The project will be financed with $7.5 million from Sears and $1 million from the Tollway Authority. The job will be completed in November.

Hoffman Estates Mayor Michael O'Malley said the interchange will enhance vehicle access to the Sears complex, called Prairie Stone (and 700 acres of which is still undeveloped), as well as to 2,000 more acres mostly occupied now by cornfields and a few stone quarries located to the west of Sears, both north and south of the tollway.

"The more accessible it is, the easier it is to market," O'Malley said in an interview at the ground-breaking.

He said the undeveloped acres extend to Hoffman Estates' natural boundaries-the East Dundee city limits on the west and the Barrington city limits on the north.

The entire area would be commercial-mostly offices with some retail-in Hoffman Estates' plan.

Nearly 5,000 Sears employees work at the retailer's Merchandise Group headquarters, which opened in 1992, but their impact on local streets and highways has been reduced because about 20 percent of them travel to and from work on the company's extensive system of van pools and buses.

"This new interchange is another step in making the Prairie Stone business park more attractive to companies looking for premier suburban office space," said Dan Garrison, Sears' divisional vice president of corporate administration.

To help handle the increased flow of traffic to the area, westbound-off and eastbound-on ramps were completed at Illinois Highway 59 in 1992, making a four-way interchange near Prairie Stone.

Though drivers have the Highway 59 alternative, many travel streets such as Golf and Higgins Roads to make their way to the west end of the village-though village officials say the problem has never been severe.

In fact, O'Malley says opening of the interchange at Highway 59 actually reduced traffic beyond what it had been before the opening of the Sears site.

Still, the Beverly Road interchange will help reduce traffic on local streets, village officials say.

"This is something that was in the planning from very shortly after Sears announced its arrival here, but it will also serve the west end of Hoffman Estates and the communities adjacent to us," O'Malley said.

O'Malley and other local officials also hope the Beverly Road interchange encourages development on the western side of town.